Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [75]
“I removed the stomach and examined the contents,” Dr. Pettigrew said, impervious to a feminine shriek sent up by Fanny Delahoussaye.
“And what did they tell you?”
“They retained still the evidence of the Earl's having ingested a large quantity of Barbadoes nuts,” the doctor said evenly.
“And would the effects of such nuts be similar to those you observed in the Earl at his death?”
“I should now judge his lordship's entire illness to have been produced by the poisonous seeds themselves.”
MR. BOTT PERMITTED US A GRUDGING RESPITE BEFORE THE jury's consideration of the maid's poor case. And so Sir William conducted the Scargrave party to the privacy of a small room at the tavern's rear, where we might take temporary shelter from the townsfolk's spite. His attitude lacked its customary warmth, and I felt all the force of my old friend's suspicion; I must confess to a weariness that was consuming, and a depression of spirits no less profound.
Fanny Delahoussaye declared herself to feel faint, citing the heat of the room, the vulgarity of the crowd pressing about her; the horrid nature of the proceedings—etc., etc. Madame hovered over her anxiously, a phial of smelling salts in hand, and pronounced her daughter unfit to remain in the tavern. That Fanny merely played upon us all, the better to win attention to herself, I little doubted; but her principal object, Lieutenant Hearst, seemed indifferent to her distress, and stood in an attitude of abstracted dejection by the room's sole window. The drama ended only when Sir William called for his carriage, which had conveyed the Delahoussayes hither; and a subdued Fanny was carried home in the company of her watchful mother. That the former had hoped to be escorted by the Lieutenant, and regretted the folly of her display, I read in her peevish looks.
Isobel sat with closed eyes and deathly countenance on a chair in the corner, never speaking and hardly stirring; a silent Fitzroy Payne stood by her chair, his tortured thoughts etched upon his countenance. Mr. George Hearst bestirred himself, with surprising good will, and procured a little wine for Isobel, which had a restorative effect; but the mortifications my dear friend had endured were hardly at an end, and might be expected to worsen as the day progressed. I foresaw how it should go; and in very little time, the wine consumed, we were returned to our chairs to my surprise, llzzy scratch was first called and sworn.
She was a rough, broad woman in a worn wool dress that might once have been of a rosy hue, but was faded now with dirt and age to a dull maroon. Black mitts partly covered chilblained fingers, and on her feet she wore the stout boots of a field labourer—her late husband's, perhaps, for that she was a widow we quickly learned. She reached from time to time to adjust a ridiculous straw hat—which swept up from her frowzy brow like the masthead of a schooner, arrayed with turnips and cabbage leaves and what I judged to be a rooster's wattle. She stood before her fellow townsfolk in all the glory of notice; she knew the power of having a tale to tell.
“You are a resident of this village?” Mr. Bott's tone lacked something of the warmth with which he had addressed the magistrate.
“That I am, sir, born and bred, wed and bed, as the saying goes.” Lizzy Scratch had profited by the proceeding's several hours to consume a quantity of warm gin, that much was certain.
“And what is your occupation?”
“It's a laundress as I am, ‘aving learned the trade from my good mother; and taken it up once more when my pore Joe passed from this life.”
“And were you acquainted with the maid, Marguerite Dumas? “
“I ‘ad ‘er ladyship's washing off ‘er every ‘alf-week,” Lizzy Scratch said, staring balefully at Isobel; “and such a lot of shameful finery as the woman wore, I should not like to say. It was enough to turn the stomach of any decent woman, it was.”
“That is quite enough, Mrs. Scratch,” the coroner said peremptorily. “Please confine yourself